Lobby Bar – February 24: In-Flight Entertainers, Siri Gets an Accent, and the Future of Umbrellas

Lobby Bar – A Melodious Mélange of FBT News and Views

Here we are now, entertainer. Let’s take a look at why an increasing number of airlines are opting to ditch seatback entertainment systems in new aircraft. The answer is obvious: all major airline unions merged with the Screen Actors Guild to give flight attendants an opportunity to showcase their talents through in-flight monologues, musical numbers, and dance routines. Earplugs are available at a fee.

Rain or rain. Jesse Sokolow heads to the Pacific Northwest and spends a night at the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle. Jesse was lucky: he happened to be in town during the city’s famed annual rain festival, a celebration that embraces the rainy season and takes place each year from January 1st through December 31st.

In-drive dining. Jonathan Spira takes off to Kona, Hawaii, for a cup of coffee. Oh, and also to give Lexus’ new 2018 LC 500 and LC 500h a few spins. The Japanese automaker knew that it had to return to its roots in terms of design, which is why the materials, angles, and energy of the car work together perfectly to create the right atmosphere for the driverside sushi bar.

Robot reminders. Canada is turning 150 years old this year and the country is celebrating with a number of incentives to visit, such as free admission to all of its public parks. As an added bonus, visitors going through immigration will receive a free Canadian accent mod to apply to Siri so they can “take a bit of Canada with them” when they leave.

Unleash the brollies! T-Mobile was given the green light to boost its LTE capacity and speed with newly-approved LTE-U technology. The U stands for Umbrella, and when the service goes live this spring, metal umbrellas nationwide will serve as natural signal amplifiers, which means that customers should expect excellent download and upload speeds during rainstorms.

Give me your thirsty. American Airlines is rolling out its new boarding process on March 1st. While we’ve written about it a number of times, the airline keeps changing its mind about how it wants to board passengers. In its most recent update, American says that it wants to board its thirstiest customers first so they can be offered expensive pre-departure beverages, thus maximizing profits.

The coronavirus is now affecting 104 countries and territories across the globe and many travelers are postponing or cancelling their travel plans as a result.
In some cases, a traveler is holding off because travel to his destination is simply not possible due to quarantine and containment rules; in others, it’s simply a desire not to go somewhere where one might end up with the coronavirus or trapped in a quarantined …

In early May, Warren Buffett divested all of his investment firm’s holdings in the four major U.S. airlines, warning that the “world has changed” for the aviation industry due to the coronavirus crisis. In mid May, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he saw a bumpy road ahead for the airline industry and predicted that a major carrier would not survive 2020 as a result.
It appears Buffett and Calhoun were on …